


as soon as he closes his eyes

by macaroonie



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, I Don't Even Know, IT AIN'T RIGHT I SWEAR, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), THAT CREDITS THO, i could not continue to live
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-05
Updated: 2016-05-05
Packaged: 2018-06-06 15:03:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6758884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/macaroonie/pseuds/macaroonie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>******************** MAJOR SPOILERS FOR CIVIL WAR SORRY ABOUT THAT ******************************</p><p> <br/>ok thanks to the Amazing (!!) Billywig_43 there is now a translation into Chinese if you're into that! read here http://aofanyi.lofter.com/post/1dcceed7_b754221<br/> </p><p> </p><p>Steve closes his eyes for one second and thinks about breaking the glass. He could do it. He could do it if he was angry or lonely enough.<br/>And what then? Bucky warmed up and breathing again - good - but he would just look around at the world, resigned and guilty, and ask to be put under to keep everyone else safe. Because he’s a threat. Because he’s done with that now. Because killing and living for this long has taken his body and replaced it and taken it again. </p><p>WHERE THERE IS AN ENDING THAT I CAN LIVE WITH RE: CW</p>
            </blockquote>





	as soon as he closes his eyes

As soon as he closes his eyes and the clouds billow up around him, he watches, watches, like he promised himself he would watch. His eyes sting, watching. This is what he wanted.

A technician clears her throat and says “Captain Rogers? He’s probably lost consciousness by now. And more quietly, “As far we can tell, the procedure is completely painless.”

Even before she finishes her sentence he gets the hell out and does not stop to say thank you. It’s a beautifully lit room and he cannot fucking bear the natural light shining in on Bucky, leaving again, leaving Steve and this time he asked for it. 

  
He shoulders out of one of the enormous doors, leaves it swinging behind him, and moves with his head down as fast as he can.

Anywhere else. Back to Bucky. Back home.

  
A lift empties ahead of him and he almost runs to catch it.

  
Steve looks out of the glass and pushes his face with his hands, tries to plan, to think beyond it. It's too bright everywhere for moping in this beautiful country.

Someone shifts behind him. 

Elevators and surprises are not a good combination, in his experience. 

He tenses and thinks for a half-second and relaxes, because it could only be Natasha. Safe.

He knows she's watching with sharp blank eyes so he tries to stay looking out of the window, sort his face out. 

Before she says anything too true, Steve says “I'm fine.”

  
She says “Steve,” like she wanted to say something else and he wants to crumple up at her voice, too kind.

His mouth opens, something grasping at his throat but she hisses  _Not here_  and pulls him out at the next floor. 

The building is a glass mystery to Steve and he doesn’t bother to keep track of where they’re going. They arrived yesterday - even so Natasha steers him along increasingly narrow corridors with ease, big lunk of misery him too numb to think about the lefts and rights they’re taking

A small nondescript door opens to a real metal key. She turns to face him. 

More gently this time, she says, "It's better here."

It’s a small room. The air con doesn’t quite stretch to him, a forgotten space.  
The heat and her piercing eyes raise a sweat on his forehead. 

Steve tries to say something again but the words shake out incomprehensibly. His hands are shaking too and he grips his thighs, thinks,  _stop giving me away_.

“I tried to stop him.”

  
Natasha, with a sigh out. “I know.”

  
“He said he’s too dangerous to be among people. I told him we could deal with that.”

He makes himself look at her. He imagines anger or judgement in her eyes but she only looks solid, maybe a little worried.

“I didn’t beg, but I was close.”

Steve closes his eyes for one second and thinks about breaking the glass. He could do it. He could do it if he was angry or lonely enough.  
And what then? Bucky warmed up and breathing again - _good_ \- but he would just look around at the world, resigned and guilty, and ask to be put under to keep everyone else safe. Because he’s a threat. Because he’s done with that now. Because killing and living for this long has taken his body and replaced it and taken it again.

In their silence the room hums with the work of the building, the focussed power and concentration of all the people moving, purposeful, knowing their place. It’s a metal and glass shrine to the future.

  
Bucky would have loved it.

  
He tries again.

  
Bucky _did_ love it. For one of the first times this century he saw his eyes light up when, looking out of the windows of the hypermodern plane, rising out of the luscious green country was the gem, the glittering capital. It was a flicker of interest, a bemused half-second smile, but Steve caught him doing it.

For a moment he thought this place and its wonders could be enough to keep him warm. But no, still they walked to the bright high-up room and Bucky willingly shut himself up in the same cold hell that he came from, rather than all this.

His eyes heat up. He hasn't had much opportunity to see if the new body permits tears in the name of perfection. 

When he can raise his head again, she’s closer to him than he thought and it comes to him that he didn’t see her get on the plane. Maybe the abilities of the people that surround him now shouldn't surprise him any more, but sometimes it feels so recently like he was still living in the real world. 

He hears “Steve,” spoken patiently, like she’s said it a couple of times already and it jolts him out of his head again. 

He tries to get a read on her, inspect her, like she must be doing to him. Her hair is perfect. She looks beautiful as always, but tired.

She gestures to a table he hadn’t noticed. The near silence would be unnerving except he’s used to it, and also, he’s beginning to sense she’s brought him here not to see him break down but to reveal some new awful quest.

He just doesn’t want to hear it. 

He knows he has no choice.

Into the quiet is her voice, low, always measured and ironic, and his eyes close as if to shut it off. 

“He’s dangerous. You know that now. He remains one of the most lethal weapons I have ever seen. Triggered or not, he isn't - and will never be - the James you once knew.

  
"What I do know is that his only weakness and tie to humanity is Steve Rogers. Important people will be putting that together soon, or have already. 

"They’re realising it goes both ways. I don’t even know if it’s an exaggeration to say that the two of you together are a nightmare prospect to someone who doesn’t realise how goddamn _principled_  you are.”

Steve wants to say something because he doesn’t want Bucky back to take down a government or for the power or fear or anything like that, of course not. It’s not like that. The last part of him he wants is the weapon they made. 

“You know I would have tried to kill him, before, because I thought it was the best decision at the time.”

“Then why did you help us?”

It comes out as a choke.

He winces, thinking about Tony, coming to save them and being so betrayed instead.

At this question, Natasha ducks her head under her hair and pauses. She directs the rest of her words to the opposite wall. He knows that every action of hers is calculated to ring a response but it’s so unlike her to be unsteady that he blinks.  
“First: without him, you’re not coming back to the Avengers. Let’s face it, the Accords were a failure. I know now it was my mistake to back them. But 'Bucky'-" airquotes and all "-is really what’s keeping you on the down low, all the way out here."

"Secondly:  Steve, that was a nice letter you wrote to Stark but come on - they - _we_ \- are a mess without someone to boss us around. 

  
“Last -“ And she twists her gaze again and smiles a little - “I need the Avengers. I need them for the red I’ve still got.”

Her smile turns into a smirk when she says “So actually, it’s all very selfish.”

His own face pulls in response because she can’t possibly be saying what she’s saying.  
The monster of a heart in his chest beats faster, but he manages, “He won’t come out and stay out until he knows he’s. Safe.”  
Quick as anything she taps out something on her phone and pushes it across the table. He almost drops it, he’s so eager to read the screen.  
_And I might know something about the codes._

Like he hasn’t felt for a long time, he feels dizzy. He gets up and walks to the other side of the room and rests his hands on the wall and breathes, in and out deep to calm himself, like the good old days when bad lungs were the worst thing he could imagine. The Black Widow doesn’t wear perfume but there’s some indefinable thing left in the air because she knows she’s the best, and it lingers, that surety.

Jesus! Bucky! He wants to say it out loud. He felt so blue, even half an hour ago - worse than blue, grey, the colour leached out of him when the frost crept over the glass.  
And now- something spiky, something alive, is growing, the grin creeping on his face with the possibility.

 _I might know something._  
Translated as: I know a lot, or I will very soon. He shivers.

Bucky’s face rises up in his mind; the short haired one, the first one. He tries to replace the image with the one he knows now. It hurts until he remembers he still smiles, maybe not so smooth or easy but it exists despite everything: he smiled like he surprised himself even thinking of it when he spoke about the old times, his memories.  
Whatever happened, is happening.

He _still remembers_ , and it draws _that_ out of him like a flame.

When he turns, he makes sure that his back is straight like they taught him, right back when this started, and he folds his arms across his chest and says, “So when do we start?”


End file.
